Best Network Solution

What would be the recommended wireless unit to connect to the switch ? An Airport Express ?

They don't say,  but remember in this setup the wireless is not for audio, or at least not for the main audio player.  The point being made is ethernet wired enables a robust "rock solid" network

However, in other articles the AirPort Extreme seems to be well regarded. 

I'm wondering if the "critical" part is having the NAS and Audio connected to the switch.

I currently (in my second system) have a wireless connection to my Sonos Connect (a dongle which converts wireless to ethernet which is then plugged into my Sonos), with the NAS connected to the 2nd Ethernet port of the Sonos, so I'm guessing the Sonos acts as a switch.

If I'm right that the Sonos acts as a switch, and the fact I have no issues at all with playback, seems to support this.

Hi Mike, in the 'do I need a switch' thread, you mentioned you have your NAS/switch SMPS on an APC UPS. Do you perceive any audible benefits from having this in- circuit, vs out?

regards

Hi 40 below,  no I haven't tried it to compare with the UPS in & out of the circuit.   Its not in place for SQ, its to safeguard the NAS against power failure disc damage,  plus it keeps my wireless broadband & phone alive for an hour or so.

I did hear positive changes when I installed it,  but that work included a lot of other changes around the ethernet & other power supply areas as well,  so its hard to say what did what.   The UPS has a chunky common mode choke that suppresses RFI & other noise,  but a big RFI/EMI & spike blocker is a 1/1 isolation transformer.  

My little network is set up precisely like the that in the diagram. I use an airport express connected to the Hifi switch, to which the iPad is connected. The AE also streams to the Roberts iRadio in the kitchen. All other wireless traffic goes via my DrayTek router.

How did I get to this setup when I am basically clueless? Simon in Suffolk told me what to do, and as every child knows, one must always do what Simon says.

Hi Blythe,  yes one of the critical parts of a well designed LAN is the switch, it handles & organises packets of  data to & from only the correct MAC addresses

But your Sonos Connect is not a switch, I would guess the x2 ethernet ports are for basic connection purposes,  but not as a switch.  

Yep, the Airport Express is the wifi access point I'd recommend for audio control such UPnP DLNA and Apple Airplay. These audio control and discovery protocols use something called multicast data. Multicast data should be handled differently between wifi and wired transmission for reliability by the network. Some consumer wifi access points seem to struggle here, the Airport Express works fine, no doubt being optimised for Airplay and Apple discovery protocols.

Simon

PS.   HH if only Mrs SinS would agree with you 

Good of you Simon to be so modest, but I too follow your advice whenever I understand it!

Mike-B, many thanks for such a useful thread.  This is the configuration that I too have ended up with, probably because Simon said...

... and it has been stable since I set it up a couple of years ago.

So, thanks again for helping those of us who are less networks-savvy.

Best regards, FT

This is my system schematic,  its a simpler network,  & I guess like a lot of users, using just a one box of the ISP supplied type wireless hubs rather than an additional AE.

It also shows the single ethernet earth point in the streamer & the isolated connections at NAS & router.  

Seriously, I am having great difficulty in figuring out what multicast has to do with wifi or hifi in the domestic environment. It is a means of delivering mass communications without having to send multiple copies of the same data. Here is the opening definition from Wikipedia.

In computer networking, multicast (one-to-many or many-to-many distribution^[1]) is group communication^[2] where information is addressed to a group of destination computers simultaneously. Multicast should not be confused with physical layer point-to-multipoint communication.

Group communication may either be application layer multicast^[2] or network assisted multicast, where the latter makes it possible for the source to efficiently send to the group in a single transmission. Copies are automatically created in other network elements, such as routers, switches and cellular network base stations, but only to network segments that currently contain members of the group."

How and why this should have the slightest implication to domestic hifi is completely beyond me. As to switches, routers, and ethernet versus wifi am sure we are getting a lot of juju talk going on here as well. A switch simply provides a means of adding more physical connections to the router and thus splits the available bandwidth dependent on what proportion the switch receives. 

Whether your equipment is connected via ethernet or wifi the significant difference between the two is the speed of delivery. The ethernet connection will be potentially much faster. However, in terms of the music you wish to play, you will know when you have run out of wifi bandwidth when the music stops playing. If the receiving device cannot reassemble the original packages successfully the music will die. This is what definitely happens from time to time on, say, Spotify.

Now, there may be merit in discussing what happens with high definition. I have stolen this from What HiFi - "The highest quality MP3 has a bitrate of 320kbps, whereas a 24-bit/192kHz file is transferred at a rate of 9216kbps." As you can see, the 24 bit recording will need 9.2MBPS of available bandwidth. A Linksys EA6900 router claims 400MBPs at 5GHZ, but only if you are about a foot away, and even that is dubious. Nevertheless, the latest routers even at extended distances should be able to deliver high definition music untroubled to your home devices, albeit at a cost which should be buttons to most Naim owners.

Anyway, am no physicist so am more than prepared to be corrected on my post.

How do you guys do these diagrams?

would like to know that too...

enjoy

ken

I use either MS "Paint" or "Paint.NET" for the simple stuff like that.  But any drawing package will work.  Save as a .jpg & upload to whatever www.photo-store service you use,  then copy/paste the URL on the Naim picture attachment thingy.

Thanks for starting this thread. I have almost the same setup outlined in schematics at the opening post since last Saturday.
 
Gigabit modem >> Airport Extreme >> Airport Express >> Switch (Linksys se2500) + UQ2 + MacBook Pro + Nas
 
Airports are hard wired with ordinary Cat5e. Between express and the switch as well as the switch and UQ2, Nas Cat6e runs are used. And the setup sucks big time !  320k web radio streaming is sometimes so awfully flaky that makes me want to throw the qute (and now muso temporarily) out of window. Streaming from Nas or MBPr has no issues. Web radio reception issues have been and are on the agenda when UQ2 and muso is hard wired  to the network with Cat6e. When on wifi those issues diminish..
 
According to the latest measurement download speed at airport express is around 40 mbps (wireless) and more than 90 mbps (hard wired). At the end of airport extreme those numbers are naturally up; around 130 mbps (wireless) and a little more than 200 mbps (hard wired). So I suppose speed is not a problem.
 
Cat6e cannot be the culprit, can it? Any ideas?

I doubt it’s the Cat6,  but maybe before we move to other stuff, can you get a length of freebee ethernet to temporarily substitute & to test each section.

One clue is Streaming from Nas or MBPr has no issues,  so if I understand your description correctly the problem is only with web radio & it’s a problem when wireless & hardwired. So I would suspect it’s something in the modem > AE > AE section.

I don’t know much about Apple stuff – so we need some Apple Airport experts to step up.  

Hal please clarify your throughput speeds, I am reading that as around 4MB/s for wireless and 9MB/s for wired.

I could be reading wrong, but if not thats pretty ropey.

On AC wireless at home I am seeing 36-45MB/s and wired for throguhput copy on the network around 90-110MB/s

In my experience Airport Extremes are not up to much, I have no experience of linskys but of course your actual ISP WAN speed is important, as you state that internally you have no issues but externally (i.e. web radio) is flakey.

I consistently get ~55Mbps both up and down speed out of my Airport Extreme, which is at the limit of my broadband provider (I pay for 50).  I've not found any real need to pay for more at this time.

Hi Andarkian, multicast data  is used for UPnP and Airplay discovery and update methods. The media itself is however transferred using unicast TCP in the regular streaming I have traced.

Therefore if the multicast UDP packets are not correctly propagated then devices such as UPnP clients and servers can disappear to perhaps then re appear etc. 

Hal my Airport time capsule supports around 1.3Gbps on ac when connecting within a couple of metres of it .. The fact you say local streaming is fine and web radio isn't draws my attention to your internet connection. What sort of service is it? Does your web radio service constantly interrupt with buffer emptying and filling repeatedly?

Simon

Hal, if you do get the oscillating buffer, I have seen this sometimes before and I do believe it's a Naim issue, and I think it' might be to do the with the TCP window and application buffer logic / timing In certain situations in the Naim. If it is a Naim issue then perhaps it might be resolved on the new firmware that is imminently due.

There have been several on this forum mentioning this and that the issues largely disappear when using wifi with thier Naim. (The data sequence timing at a low level changes between wifi and wired)

Simon

Thanks Gentlemen. Appreciated. Sorry, I should have been clearer.

I am not a tech savvy guy. I took this matter with my ISP before to see what may be possible wrong with the infrastructure. They sent a technician two times. But language barrier sometimes proves too high to overcome. I should have learned Cantonese by now..
 
The issue rear its ugly head when streamers (UQ2 and Muso) are hardwired to network. Amazingly during wireless ops (iRadio, streaming from Nas as well as MCBPr or Spotify connect on Muso for that matter)  both streamers seem pretty solid. Yet, I hear SQ suffers. It is a little less transparent and lacking drive compared to hardwired. Like most of us on this forum I do not prefer wifi connection either. 

Yes Simon, situation with iRadio reception at 320k stations are pretty much like what you described indeed. When they are hardwired to express via switch, buffer levels wildly fluctuate. UQ2 always keep trying to lock on but Muso throws in the towel readily. 
 
Even though they will not wholly explain the situation with network diagnostics, earlier tonight I have re-tested the speeds using Ookla. Below numbers are converted from Mbps:
 
First, nearest to the source. Airport extreme. Download via iMac (hardwired to extreme) 58 MB/s, via MacBookPro (wifi) 21 MB/s.
 
Second, Airport express. Download via MacBookPro (hardwired to express) around 12-13 MB/s, via iPad around 5 MB/s (a very old iPad).

For what it’s worth, Airport Utility app on iPad shows both iPad and Muso connection to express ‘excellent’ with numbers 65 and 58 Mb/s (data rate), respectively. 
 
Upload speeds at either end are equal to or better than those of downloads. Airports are in bridge mode utilizing express as a range extender and IP allocation is handled by Airport extreme, I suppose. When I directly connected iMac to modem throughput jumped to 500 mbps (62.5 MB/s) which is my contract limit for the time being. So Airport extreme doesn't seem much of a choke. Could another extreme in place of express be a solution?
 
Btw, I have no plan  to put both my UQ2 and the new thingy next to each other in the same room. Muso will be a gift and is only retained for ‘testing’ purposes for a while

Hal

I tend to think this has nothing to do with your home LAN and wifi setup. (with respect to Web radio issues) Interesting the issue is also with the Muso - so tends to imply not fixed in the new firmware.

I really would call or email Naim support - to get to the bottom of this one is probably going to need to undertake network traces with Wireshark or similar - and this is best handled by Naim Support rather than on this forum.

Simon

Simon, I will not pretend for an instant that I understood all of what your reply to me meant, but Unicast seems to be the most pertinent i.e. one transmission intended for local receipt. I will once again refer to my very reliable Wikipedia which seems to imply that multicast is a means of targeting the delivery of data, particularly in terms of TV on demand for transmission to specific customers and / or where there is actual demand rather than simply sending data out 'everywhere'.. As such, it implies that a request for the supplied data is sent by the client to the source. I have no idea whether e.g. Spotify use multicast, but would be very surprised if your local digital music is transmitted to your hardware by this method. Van't find any reference to UPnP using multicast. Am appending the multicast reference material.

"Wireless communications (with exception to point-to-point radio links) as well as cable TV bus networks are inherently broadcasting media, i.e. multipointchannels, especially if the antennas are omni-directional and radio/TV transmitters covering a region form a broadcasting network that send the same content. However, the communication service provided may be unicast, multicast as well as broadcast, depending on if the data is addressed to one, to a group or to all receivers in the covered network, respectively.

In digital-TV, the concept of multicast service sometimes is used to refer to content protection by broadcast encryption, i.e. encrypted content over a simplex broadcast channel only addressed to paying viewers (pay television). In this case, data is broadcast (or distributed) to all receivers, but only addressed to a specific group.

The concept of interactive multicast, for example using IP multicast, may be used over TV broadcast networks to improve efficiency, offer more TV programs, or reduce the required spectrum. Interactive multicast implies that TV programs are sent only over transmitters where there are viewers, and that only the most popular programs are transmitted. It relies on an additional interaction channel (a back-channel or return channel), where user equipment may send join an leave messages when the user changes TV channel. Interactive multicast has been suggested as an efficient transmission scheme in DVB-H and DVB-T2terrestrial digital television systems,^[6] A similar concept is switched broadcast over cable-TV networks, where only the currently most popular content is delivered in the cable-TV network."

i will end with a sort of mea culpa relating to the wireless protocols for transmitting and receiving of wireless data. Naim using 802.11b/g receivers in, for example, the Muso limits the receivable volume of data per second. Why they have not gone up to at least 'n' is strange. 

Clearly, anyone thinking that there are just the bits and bytes making up their digital music that are transmitted over whichever network protocol they use is a bit simplistic.  

Thanks Simon.

OK, I will re-flag this issue up with the support. Hope there will be a firmware or hardware fix soon. Maybe Naim do not bother with this issue as this web radio reception stability matter only affects a very tiny minority.

Hal

Andarkin you are quoting general applications of the use of multicast data architecturally in your Wiki references. This is all fine.

I am talking about multicast data packets as specifically used in a home LAN environment for AirPlay and UPnP/DLNA applications. Multicast (packets from a single source to multiple destinations)  data is handled and processed in many ways differently from unicast data (data with a single source and destination). Multicast data is actually distributed to groups of hosts. However this uses more advanced network capabilities in network components such as IGMP and Snooping to define and manage these groups. This is not often present for consumer network components - and therefore devices like consumer switches tend to broadcast multicast data to all - by effectively assuming everyone is in the same multicast group. This is inefficient but not usually an issue for home networks which tend to have low complexity and traffic.

Multicast data is used by UPnP/DLNA  to talk and receive status as well as discover participating devices  concurrently - but is NOT used for media transfer in our streaming solutions - that uses regular unicast data.

I hope that gives you a little explanation of why multicast data is relevant in terms of support for UPnP/DLNA and Airplay applications and why muticast data is often seen as being broadcast in the home LAN.

Simon